An Imperfect Spy: 11 (Kate Fansler)

FASCINATING . . . The dialogue is as always elegant and polished.--Los Angeles TimesWhile guest-teaching a semester at Schuyler Law School Kate Fansler gets to know an extraordinary secretary named Harriet who patterns her life after John le Carrés character George Smiley. Harriet reveals that Schuyler has some serious skeletons swinging in its perfectly appointed closets including the fate of Schuylers only tenured female professor and a faculty wife who has killed her husband. As if Kate doesnt have enough to tackle she is also up against the men who comprise the faculty of Schuyler itself--a thoroughly unapologetic bastion of white male power mediocrity and misogyny. Although she has only a few months on campus Kate refuses to let Schuylers rigid ideals and insistence on secrecy suppress her indefatigable curiosity--or her obsession with the truth. . . .Cross manages to keep this book as lighthearted and witty as any of the Kate Fansler mysteries while depicting an institution as lethal as any cold war.--Marilyn FrenchA funny snappish polemic on political correctitude that takes great relish in Kates sardonic views.--The New York Times Book Review